Print-on-demand (POD) for books involves the on demand, printing, binding and trimming of bound books. POD is also applicable to other publications and media that require finishing. Typically, bound books comprise a stacked plurality of text pages referred to as a book block, which includes one edge that is known to as the spine. The cover is of a suitable cover stock that is generally thicker and/or heavier than the text pages comprising the book block. The cover has a front portion that overlies the front of the book block, a back portion that overlies the back of the book block, and a center portion spanning across the spine of the book block. A suitable adhesive can be applied between the spine of the book block and the inside face of the center portion of the cover. The spine of the book block (i.e., the edges of the text pages along one edge of the book block) can be imbedded in the adhesive which, upon curing, securely adheres the pages of the book block to one another and to the center portion of the cover, thereby permitting the book to be opened to any page without the pages coming loose.
In high volume production processes for manufacturing such bound books, the pages of each book block are usually jogged by specially developed machines prior to the application of adhesive so as to insure that the edges of the pages are properly aligned with one another. The adhesive, typically a suitable hot melt adhesive, is then applied to the spine of the book block. The cover, which is usually pre-printed, is then folded around the front, spine, and back of the book block and is firmly clamped to the book block proximate the spine during assembly. In this manner, the adhesive is firmly pressed between the spine of the book block and the inner face of the center portion of the cover to properly adhere the cover to the book block while simultaneously adhering the pages to one another.
Typically, bound books are printed on pages that are somewhat larger than the desired size (i.e., the length and width) of the finished and bound book to be produced. These books, after they are bound, are typically trimmed along three sides to the desired final dimension in a separate trimming machine. Heretofore, such operations were carried out in separate machines that required considerable adjustment to bind books of different sizes and thus were best suited for production runs of many books. In addition, both prior art binding machines and trimming machines were very expensive.
In recent years, book printing has undergone changes as computer technology and laser printers have advanced. This new technology now allows for machines capable printing perfect bound books “on-demand”. This new technology is often referred to as print-on-demand (POD). Such POD printed books come in a variety of formats and thicknesses (i.e., the number of pages in the book). Note that the terms “printing-on-demand” and “print-on-demand” are generally utilized interchangeably and refer to the same acronym “POD”.
One example of a print-on-demand (POD) system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,995,721, “Distributed Printing System,” which issued to Rourke et al. on Nov. 30, 1999. U.S. Pat. No. 5,995,721 generally discloses document processing system including at least one document reproduction apparatus and managing on-demand output of a document job. The document job is characterized by a set of job attributes with each job attribute relating to a manner in which the document job is to be processed by the document processing system. The document processing system, which further includes a document server for managing conversion of the document job into the on-demand output, includes: a plurality of queues mapped to a plurality of document processing subsystems, each of the plurality of queues including a set of queue attributes characterizing the extent to which each document processing subsystem mapped to one or more of the plurality of queues is capable of processing a job portion delivered to the one or more queues.
Another example of a print-on-demand system is disclosed U.S. Pat. No. 5,832,193, “Method and apparatus for printing a label on the spine of a bound document,” which issued to Perine et al on Nov. 3, 1998. U.S. Pat. No. 5,832,193 generally describes a printing system for printing a representation of an image on a first portion of a bound document with the image being disposed on a second portion of the bound document is provided. The printing system includes an input station for generating a print job including the image, and a printing machine, communicating with the input station, for producing prints corresponding with the job, wherein one of the prints includes the image as a printed image.
The printing system of U.S. Pat. No. 5,832,193 further includes a spine printing apparatus including an image capture system for reading the printed image and converting the same to a set of image data; and a printing device for printing the representation of the image, by reference to the set of image data, on the first portion of the bound document. Note that both U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,995,721 and 5,832,193 are incorporated herein by reference. Note, however, that neither U.S. Pat. No. 5,995,721 nor U.S. Pat. No. 5,832,193 constitute essential matter. Such patents are referenced herein for general edification and background purposes only.
Books and other publications created for print-on-demand (POS) applications can therefore be mastered (i.e., run through a pre-press process), placed in a repository, and then printed, bound and trimmed when an order for the book arrives. One of the primary problems that current POD systems encounter is that color does not remain constant at each step in the workflow. While the industry has produced standards that facilitate consistent color throughout printing and other associated workflow processes, the actual applications have lagged behind in implementing such standards. As a result, the deployment of digital, on-demand printing systems, in addition to the complexity of other technologies has prevented many users from deploying correctly implementing such workflows, at least with respect to color rendering. A need thus exists for improved methods and systems for permitting the deployment of POD systems for color publishing, such as color books. An end-to-end workflow for creating and printing color books while maintaining color consistent at each step in the workflow is needed.